Oh, how I have come to hate this trope. It has been around for as long as I have been reading books, but I feel like it has really gained in popularity in recent years.
Who is the witchy woman who lives in the woods? She is someone who despite being ostracized from society, having no access to formal education, and typically never having been more than 5 miles of where she was born, is the foremost expert at whatever it is she has chosen to study – either something related to nature or healing (or both). If it is healing, all of her concoctions not only work, they work better than any conventional medicine. If she ever meets someone who is "supposedly" a worldly expert in any subject (usually when she is still under 25 and the expert is in their 60s and has spent a lifetime in study), she will quickly embarrass them with her superior knowledge. She casually muses over concepts and philosophies which will not be developed in the world for years or even centuries. She is perfectly in tune with nature, more wood sprite than human. Often she has actual supernatural or magical powers, despite residing in a conventional world meant to mirror our own. She is often a midwife.
The witchy woman is perfectly moral, not by the standards of her own time, but by the standards of ours. She doesn't simply question now dated religious and social norms, she rejects them all completely, and yet is able to find a fulfilling and successful life despite being a social exile, often enjoying particular freedom and economic success for a woman of her time. She is fearless, a feminist, an abolitionist, a humanitarian bigoted against no one except the rich and powerful, and often befriends and protects the disabled or homosexuals or other exiles of society. She is always sexually enlightened and has extremely modern views on sexuality. She is often bisexual. She is always beautiful and captivating to men, but effortlessly so, being far too enlightened for vanity and too woodsy for clean skin and hair.
At this point, it just comes across as a lazy attempt to make a female character interesting and compelling, but all it does is take me out of the story. The Witchy Woman Who Lives In The Woods can be done well, crafting a woman who is interesting and capable and believably written; "I, Tituba" by Maryse Condé is my favorite example of this being well done. I also absolutely loved Robert Eggers' movie "The Witch," with its message "Even in a world in which the Satanic witches they fear actually existed, the Puritans were still worse."
Sharon K Penman (who wrote historical sweeping historical fictions that took place in 12th and 13th century Europe) remains to me the GOAT of portraying powerful, forward thinking women who did buck convention…but still were products of their time and restricted both socially and ideologically in terms of just how developed their thinking would be.
by BostonBlackCat
24 Comments
Ugh yes this is so accurate it hurts lmao. The “casually invents modern feminism 300 years early while also being the world’s best herbalist at age 22” character drives me nuts
Sharon K Penman knew what she was doing – her women felt like actual people instead of time-traveling sociology professors cosplaying as peasants
When a trope is subverted so often in a similar manner it stops becoming clever and becomes just another trope.
What are some examples of this trope being done poorly?
I think I’m going to go tug my braid and think about this. Nyneave shouted.
I like her because I want to be her. Sure, she isn’t realistic but neither is Jason Bourne.
I prescribe Sir Terry Pratchett’s *Equal Rites* as your cure.
I must be reading different books because I never run into this. All the women living in the woods in my books are old as dirt. I know you gave a few examples but is there an overall genre you’re finding this in?
There was a little woman
And she had no house or home
So she found herself a forest
A new pasture for her to roam
She was a lady
A lady in the woods
This reminds me of Granny Weatherwax but she’s awesome.
This also sounds a bit like the Winternight trilogy but I loved that series. The main character isn’t instantly good at everything though. She has major flaws and magical powers.
I love the feminist protagonist in historical Eastern Europe shown in the Winternight trilogy and Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik. Misogyny is always wrong and it makes sense for women to rebel against that if they have a reason.
What bothers me most about this trope is not that the character is competent or independent, it is that she often exists without epistemic limits. Knowledge has no cost, no lineage, no mistakes. She simply knows, and knows better than everyone else, regardless of time, culture, or access. That turns her from a character into a corrective device for the reader. When the story stops asking how someone knows what they know, it stops feeling historical and starts feeling didactic.
You would **LOVE** *Caliban And The Witch* by Silvia Federici
Just another iteration of Mary Sue, really.
It sticks around because witches are aesthetically popular and superior flawless characters easy to digest.
This is why I love the similar and yet very different bog witch/crone. Old lady with witchy ways the generally don’t give a fuck, only helps others if there’s something in it for her. Or enjoys spreading mild chaos through prophecies and stuff. Think the old witch from Wizard and Glass (The Dark Tower) or the bog witch in By the Bog of Cats. Those witches whether dealing in good or evil are typically very fun and inspire me to age not like a fine wine but rather like a twisted ancient cursed tree.
I feel like Where The Crawdads Sing is guilty of this (among many other ridiculous things, gosh that book was really not for me lol)
“The Year of Wonders” was a good book overall, but it totally had a character like this.
It’s boring because you know exactly what to expect from the character.
They could mix it up a little by occasionally having her be wrong about which herbs she uses, or have basically any opinion that isn’t modern day enlightened humanism. She could be judgmental about someone, or hypocritical, or anything really
Maybe the Church and Priests and Doctors don’t paternalistically disagree with her and impose their false cures, but even work together.
I liked how Stephen King handled this trope in the fourth Dark Tower book. He asks the question of “what would a person have to be like to not be accepted into a nice fantasy setting?” And the answer is be selfish, cruel, and all around unpleasant. Yet because Rhea’s of the Cöos is the only one who wields magic in the area, she’s still respected and called upon by the people of Mejis. It’s an interesting dynamic that goes beyond the simple “woman too smart go away” thing.
Ahhh this explains why I couldn’t get into Circe by Madeline Miller. I tried twice because of all the rave reviews and I just could not do it
The only way this trope will be believable and well done is if she has a demon familiar with ancient lost knowledge or a key that takes her to a huge magic library
Up voted just for mentioning I, Tituba, bc that’s one of my favorite books 🙂
Also, yes, such an annoying trope. Esp the modem liberal sensitivity, which is so unlikely and usually comes across as pandering, not storytelling
Lapvona starts off by teeing Ina up to be like this, but her character is as fucked up as the rest of them
OK, we must be reading different books because I have never come across witchy women living in woods that looked like what you are describing in the books I read.
All the ones in the books I read were powerful female wizards who lived in the woods because they hated being around other people (Granny Weatherwax in Discworld for example). Often, they are either cranky and misanthropic, or weird and autistic. Sometimes, they are even outright villains.
Which books have you read with that trope ? Were they fantasy or historical fiction ?
Juniper, from Monica Furlong is a character that does this trope very well.
I actually can’t think of a bad example right off the top of my head, except fantasy witches, where it’s all justified due to the fantasy part.
I like to think that the reason why all those witches are in the woods is, they are all starting to form a massive cult of witches, trying to brew the most powerful potion in all the existence of the real answer might be just because they’re probably thrown out of the village or they live in the woods becouse if they lived in a village if people found out that they were a witch, they would kill her
Terry Pratchett has some excellent witchy woman characters. 😅